I would like to thank Autonomous for supplying the sample.


Autonomous sells a variety of office and work from home related products to make your professional life healthier and more productive. This includes standing desks in various shapes and sizes. The Autonomous SmartDesk Connect stands out from the rest due to its WiFi enabled controller that features a companion app for customization and to promote the use of the standing function in an automated, reminding way.

Unboxing and A Closer Look

As with most products of this type, you will get the table top of your choice shipped in a separate package to that of the legs and motors. Both are sturdy to ensure you get everything in pristine condition.


The legs, screws and controller ship neatly arranged in two layers of foam, which allows for a compact box. Each of the pieces have their own cutouts, so nothing will end up moving during the shipping process and Autonomous clearly marks the exterior of the package to let everyone know that it is rather heavy. The table top is protected by Styrofoam layers on either side and comes with foam edge guards. On top of that there are cardboard corner reinforcements as well. In combination with the exterior additional cardboard, you can rest easy that your table top will be in beautiful condition when you unbox it.


The controller which ships with the SmartDesk Connect holds all the brains and connectivity. Its housing is made of plastic and uses a circular plug to interface with the power supply. While the design doesn't feel as sturdy as some of the other variants we have seen out there, it does feature the usual up/down button, and three customizable positions you can store. While this is sufficient. some desks can offer four such storage elements, which would allow two users to have their own set of sitting and standing configurations stored, allowing your partner to use the desk as well.


Autonomous ships the screws in a sectioned plastic bag, so you should be able to open each as you go along with your build. At the very end, they have attached a bag with a bit of cable management material that utilizes double-sided tape. While this is great to see, tape based parts will likely end up falling off after some use, as such we will instead use zip ties in our implementation. The manual is complete but so tiny that you will need perfect 20/20 vision or glasses to decipher some of its details.


The power supply is a bit larger than what we have seen with some desks and offers the usual 4 Amp, 24 Volt output. The units duty cycle of 2 minutes on and 18 minutes off is essentially the industry standard as well.


On one end of the unit, there are two 8-pin connectors to deliver the power to the two motors, while the other side is for the power lead itself as well as the interface for the controller. Autonomous includes a power cable that is long enough to give you the flexibility of raising the desk all the way with a bit of slack. On top of that, there is an extension cable so that you may reduce the cable clutter going from the motors as the PSU will be closer to one than the other - a nice touch that we don't see with every offer out there.


The embedded motor in each leg is capable of 800N, which is pretty standard for a dual-motor desk and it has the same duty cycle to match that of the power supply.

Assembly

The assembly process itself is not rocket science, but Autonomous has laid out an order of things to make handling the hefty metal parts as easy as possible. A hex tool is included, but you will also need a philips screw driver. The first step is to install the legs to the connecting frame. Unlike some desks where the legs come with half the frame that is then joined together by a single crossbar, the SmartDesk Connect sports its own, dedicated frame with two crossbars to which you attach the legs directly. As that frame is hollow, there are circular black elements that you are meant to insert into the openings to ensure the screws don't end up falling out so easily.


With the legs in place, you have to install the two ends on which the table top will rest. This step uses the same screws and tool, with two screws for each to lock them down. Getting the holes to align was a bit tricky on one of the four insertions, but with a bit of tough love and patience the screw eventually gripped and we were able to tighten it as intended.


The last step of prepping the legs revolves around attaching a stand to each leg. For this step, there are slightly longer hex screws, even though the manual incorrectly refers to them as the same ones used in the previous two steps. Even so, that is fortunately only a cosmetic issue as the thread and head of these is the same and one can deduce by the number of screws provided, that the longer ones are meant for this part of the assembly process. The stands come with two plastic, height-adjustable feet, so that you can ensure your desk will never wobble and will be level, even on old wood floors like this house from 1949.


With the legs assembled, turning our attention to the table top, you can clearly see the pre-drilled holes that can accommodate more than just this set of legs. As such, those ordering other standing desk variants from Autonomous will likely be able to opt for this top in some of the configurations. When dry fitting the legs, they would not contract far enough to accommodate the 53" wide top. As it turns out, we had to remove two of the four plastic tubes from each of the legs to allow the crossbars to slide into the frame far enough first.


With that sorted, you may use your screw driver to screw in the self tapping wood screws. Thanks to rubber rings, all mounting points have an anti-vibration element to them, so that your motorized desk will always be whirring along nice and quietly. Lastly, with everything in place, you are meant to grab the hex tool one last time to secure the cross beams in place.


Autonomous has designed the frame to allow for a dedicated, tool-less mounting of the power supply, which is a really nice step. As it is closer to one motor than the other, you can even plan ahead and route the one cable between table top and frame for a really lean look. Lastly, the controller has a dedicated position on the right end of the desk to be mounted to. While this is just fine, it would have been nice if the table top had an alternative set of pre-drilled holes on the other end too, so that you have the flexibility to set this up to best suit your needs.


With everything wired up, you can see how clean the desk looks. While we used red zip ties for you to clearly and easily see how we secured the wiring, you could also give the included cable management parts a shot. The Autonomous SmartDesk Connect has some additional drill holes which remain unused. From the locations, one can assume that this is for securing a power supply using screws if the frame model itself doesn't offer such mounting.